Jack Kukoda

I was pleased to see this headline today, although I’m slightly disturbed that this issue seems to be open to debate.

Court Rejects ‘Intelligent Design’ in Science Class [CNN]

This is the case in Dover, PA, in which a bunch of fundamentalist Christians were elected to the local school board, bullied science teachers, required students to listen to a statement that cast doubt on Darwinism, and tried to teach ‘intelligent design’ alongside evolution. Margaret Talbot wrote a great article all about the trial in The New Yorker. Unfortunately, I cannot link to it because it’s only available in the print edition. What’s that? You don’t subscribe to The New Yorker? Oh, how embarrassing for you.

Let the healing begin.

Anyway, my favorite part of this whole story is that the intelligent design textbook the school board ordered is called “Of Pandas and People.” “Of Pandas and People” sounds like a children’s book to me. I bet the plot would involve a wacky mixup where a human child somehow ends up with a panda family and a panda cub ends up with a human family. I’m not sure how, maybe the families attend the same picnic or something. Then they have to figure out how to get back to their respective families, but not before learning a lesson about pandas and people. If there are any children’s book publishers that want to give me a million dollars right now, I prefer to be paid in cash. That way I can roll around in it.

Sort of related, definitely crazy: Check out this take on dinosaurs.